


Not your ghost (not yours for the taking)

by maharetr



Series: Imagine Bucky - maharetr post [7]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alexander Pierce is an asshole, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Hallucinations, M/M, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-01
Updated: 2016-05-01
Packaged: 2018-06-05 16:24:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6712405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maharetr/pseuds/maharetr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“This is a lovely fantasy,” a voice says. Bucky freezes.</p><p>Alexander Pierce is standing on the other side of the table, hands in his suit pockets.</p><p>"Really, it is," Pierce says. "But you need to wake up now."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not your ghost (not yours for the taking)

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the [Imagine Bucky](imaginebucky.tumblr.com) tumblr, based on the prompt: " Imagine that Bucky starts having hallucinations of Pierce mocking him, trying to convince that this is just another form of torture and in fact he never escaped from HYDRA" Originally posted 23 August 2015 [here](http://imaginebucky.tumblr.com/post/127389668685/imagine-that-bucky-starts-having-hallucinations-of).

Bucky likes hanging around Tony’s workshop. There are a hundred fascinating, futuristic things in various stages of completion scattered everywhere, and there’s always things going on. Even when Tony’s soldering something, Bucky can wrestle the sparks and the hot metal smell down into ‘neat new propulsion system’. Besides, Tony never shuts up. Bucky thinks he’s pleased to have someone to talk at, and it’s almost a relief to be around someone who doesn’t care if Bucky himself responds. It’s just … nice.

“This is a lovely fantasy,” Pierce says. Bucky freezes. 

Tony rambles on, crouched over his latest giant contraption, unawares. Bucky turns his head to the right and looks.

Alexander Pierce is standing on the other side of the table, hands in his suit pockets. 

“Really it is. But you need to wake up now.” It’s Pierce’s calm, reasonable voice and Bucky cannot speak, cannot do anything but hunch his shoulders and submit. It was the tone of reasonable, calm orders, and of course the Asset would obey. Commander Pierce had spoken, of course the Asset would wake –

“Hey, Barnes.” The Asset’s head snaps around. Tony is standing now, his stance studiously casual, looking at him with the sort of careful inquiry that said he’d called more than once. “You okay there?”

Bucky takes a careful breath and steels himself to look again. There’s no one on the other side of the table. He looks back at Stark and nods.

“Okay.” Stark turns back to his work. “Pass me that wrench, yeah?”

Bucky does. The wrench is solid and cold and hard-edged, and nothing at all like a fantasy. Nothing at all.

~*~

Nights later, he wakes to utter darkness and he cannot move. For hideous seconds, he’s in the lab waking from cryo, until he registers its a bed under him and Steve asleep beside him. _Sleep paralysis_ , they’d talked him through it, so it’s the memory of Sam’s voice in his head. _Kinda terrifying, but it wears off._

So he breathes, and tries to tell his pounding heart that he’s in their warm bed, in the Tower, paralyzed but safe. Safe. Breathing.

Then the smell creeps in. 

His skin crawls even before his conscious brain remembers: Pierce’s cologne. He can’t move, can’t shout, can’t breathe for the stench and the terror and – 

“You’re not like them,” Piece whispers right in Bucky’s ear, and Bucky can’t even cringe away, can only stare upwards, tears leaking out of the corners of his eyes. “The Avengers are human beings. You’re a weapon designed to kill, a machine – with faulty parts, no less. You’re going to need considerable … correction, when we wake you. The –.”

Bucky manages a thin wail of terror from between closed lips, and it’s enough – Steve shifts behind him with a sleepy “Bucky?” and turns on the light, and it’s enough – he can thrash upright, gulping breaths between sobs, and the stench is gone and Pierce is gone –.

“Hey, no, it’s okay.” Steve is touching him, warm and solid and Bucky doesn’t _care_ if this isn’t real – he lets Steve wrap him in a hug. “Nightmare?” Steve asks softly and Bucky just shivers against Steve’s chest.

~*~

“How - how can I tell if something I think is there is actually there?”

He’s waited until he’s alone with Sam, forced the words out while Sam is focused on making them coffee. Sam, to his credit, startles only slightly.

“Are you having hallucinations?” Sam asks.

The word makes him wince. “Am I crazy, do you mean?“ 

“Are you having a known, documented symptom of severe trauma?” Sam counters, sitting down opposite him. Bucky nods tightly. 

“It’s not my area of expertise,” Sam says. “But as a general rule hallucinations don’t stand up to the touch test. If you can grab it, it’s real.” He slides a mug towards Bucky, and Bucky clasps it gratefully.

“Sounds or smells, try adding your own music through headphones. Peeling an orange or whatever – tactile things that you can link to a known scent. And you can ask us, any of us, if you need a reality check.” Sam extends his own hand out on the table, offering. The Asset knows a hundred different ways to disable someone in such a vulnerable pose. Bucky reaches across and squeezes Sam’s fingers, light and quick.

“Thanks,” he manages.

~*~

It’s been a good day, most of it spent reading on the couch. Bucky gets up to make himself another coffee and – the static shock from the doorknob is a tiny thing. It barely even _stings_ , but the terror and vertigo that sweeps in its wake… he staggers back, half-falling against the wall, cowering, curling in on himself and wrapping his arms around his head.

He can see the blue carpet, he can feel it under him. But the footsteps approaching his corner are echoing off rough concrete.

The toes of Pierce’s shoes step into Bucky’s field of vision.

Pierce has delicately stepped around puddles of Bucky’s blood in those shoes. He’d bathed Bucky’s face before ordering yet another round of beatings. He’d touched Bucky whether Bucky had wanted it or not.

“What a fucking waste,” Pierce snarls down at him. “Look at you. You pathetic piece of shit.”

 _Touch test_ , Bucky tries to think. It would be possible to shift his weight and smash his heel into Pierce’s kneecap, but even the thought is a whole new wave of nausea. He swallows.

“Fuck you,” Bucky spits, deliberately; he can’t move to Pierce, but he can damn well bring Pierce and HYDRA goons down on his head. “Fuck. You.” 

He squeezes his eyes closed, bracing, but there’s only silence.

He looks up and there’s nothing. He’s alone. He slumps back, shaking. That’s a victory, even if he’s not going to be able to stand up for a while.

~*~

There’s nothing for days, until Bucky nearly starts breathing easy. And then mid-goddamn-movie night, when they’re all sprawled over couches, relaxed and laughing, Pierce appears in the corner of Bucky’s vision. Bucky turns to glare.

“We’re going to revive you,” Pierce says. He’s back to the calm, rational statements overlaid with cold anger. “Punishment for transgressions are going to be regrettably… severe.

”“Buck?” Steve sounds concerned, but Bucky keeps his eyes on Pierce.

“Nat,” Bucky says levelly. “Fury shot Pierce, right?“

He’s aware of Tony sitting up, of Clint pausing the movie.

“You’re making a scene,” Pierce warns.

“Two center mass shots,” Nat says from the other couch. “Both chest, one in the heart.” She taps her own chest. “He was dead in less than a minute.”

Bucky nods and starts picking at the laces of his left boot. Nat eats another handful of popcorn. “If we’d had the resources, I would have got him brought back alive for you to do the honors.”

Bucky grins and loosens the laces methodically all the way down. It’s a solid, soothing action, and it’s helping channel the adrenaline surge.

“Thanks,” he says. “This is nearly as good.”

“You can’t hide from us,” Pierce is saying. “You –.” Bucky throws his boot directly at Pierce’s head. There’s no dramatic vanishing moment – Pierce is there and then he’s gone, Bucky’s boot just hits the wall and rebounds to the floor, but…

Tony is watching interestedly. “Better?” he asks.

Bucky is still shaking, but he nods firmly.

“Yeah,” he says. “Much.”

Steve wraps his arm around Bucky, and Nat ambles over to casually strip off his sock and start massaging his foot. Clint pats his knee while unpausing the movie. Even Tony squeezes his shoulder on the way to get more drinks. Everything is warm and solid. Everything is real, and it feels damn good.


End file.
